But whoever had done it had underestimated the healing light of the Mother Moon. The work of the priestesses had been enough to keep Malfurion’s unoccupied body functioning, although eventually the poison would have done its work.

Malfurion fixed on the powder, gathering it back together from where in his body it had spread. He created of it a festering ball —

At that point the archdruid vomited.

He did not see the tiny sphere as it exited, but he felt its dire influence fade. Malfurion gasped for air as he slowly pushed himself up again.

Only then did he see the two priestesses. Both were sprawled on the ground of his barrow den. They were alive, but not conscious. Worse, they twitched and occasionally murmured fearfully.

The barrow den was also filled with tendrils of a sinister and toofamiliar mist.

Malfurion had intended to meditate again in order to return to his dreamform, but now he cautiously headed into the mist toward the entrance. There was nothing that he could do for the priestesses, a t least not for the moment. The archdruid needed to know the extent of the threat to the Moonglade.

But the tableau that greeted him as he stepped outside proved how wrong he could be. The Moonglade was entirely cloaked by the mist, giving it more the appearance of a graveyard. More disturbing was that there was not a sound to be heard, not even so much as a cricket.

Striding cautiously through the vegetation, the night elf came upon another barrow den. He slipped inside.

A still form in the familiar robes met his gaze. The hood obscured the sleeper’s face. Kneeling next to the other druid, Malfurion touched the other night elf’s wrist.

It was cold to the touch.

Malfurion quickly moved aside the hood.

The gaping mouth of the corpse sent shivers through the archdruid. The barrow den’s dweller had obviously sent his dreamform forth but had not been able to return in time. Malfurion wondered if the unfortunate had been one of those combating the Nightmare or if he had perished before that.

Unable at the moment to do anything for the dead druid’s remains, Malfurion retreated from the barrow den. He wondered how many of the other earthen dwellings had such bodies.

Knowing that he had more of a chance to help the living than the dead, Malfurion considered his best options. He no longer thought of meditation; the Moonglade had been tainted. To return to his dreamform here would be too risky. He had to go elsewhere, find the other defenders.

Most of all, he needed to find out what had happened to Tyrande and those with her. They had physically entered the Emerald Dream. To Malfurion, that meant a portal and the nearest to the Dream and the Nightmare was located in Ashenvale.

Yet barely had he determined to go there, barely had he begun to transform himself to storm crow form, than Malfurion realized that his efforts needed to be focused in a direction almost opposite to that in which he had originally planned to head. Although he had been long trapped, Malfurion knew that his people had been planning a new settlement to the west, an island off the coast. Even through the Nightmare, Malfurion had sensed the other druids’ powerful efforts to do — something. Unfortunately, in trying to keep his efforts hidden from his captor, he had not been able to discover the results of those efforts. He had hints and suspicions…

The night elf gazed around the barely seen glade. There was no hint even of Remulos. Surely the Moonglade’s guardian would have appeared upon sensing Malfurion’s waking presence. Malfurion reached out with his thoughts but could still not find Cenarius’s son.

Had Remulos also joined the other druids?

The irony that he was as alone on Azeroth as he had been when a captive of the Nightmare Lord was not lost upon the archdruid.

He started to ponder this — and then wondered why he was wasting more of his time instead of acting immediately, as he should.

Malfurion concentrated. Immediately, his surroundings wavered

…and only then did he discover the true danger.

He had been daydreaming. It had not been his doing. The Nightmare was so powerful that it saturated the Moonglade.

Caught up in his concerns for the others, the archdruid had not noticed when he had begun to slip into this half-slumbering state. It had likely been what had taken the priestesses guarding his body.

But the Nightmare had not been satisfied with that. Malfurion stirred to find himself under assault from the very glade itself.

The grass twisted around his legs, torso, and arms. The trees bent to smother him. They were all touched by the familiar dark corruption he had seen in the Emerald Dream…only this was the waking world. The Nightmare Lord had seized upon Ysera’s great power to break the final barrier between dream and reality.

For just a brief moment Malfurion considered giving in to his doom. He was responsible for the Aspect’s fall and for Azeroth’s danger. Yet that thought quickly faded as Tyrande’s trusting face formed in his thoughts.

The archdruid concentrated. This is not your nature, he reminded the grass, the trees. This is a perversion of what you are a part of…

He felt the grass begin to loosen. The trees, however, did not yet respond. They began to shake at their roots, as if seeking to free themselves while still striving to reach Malfurion. At the same time the bark shifted, forming a mockery of the night elf’s own bearded visage.

“This is not your nature,” Malfurion now said out loud, at the same time focusing his millennia of training on the flora. “This is a place of peace, of tranquility…this place touches the heart of Azeroth and is in turn touched by it…”

The grass released him. The trees suddenly stiffened. The images of his face vanished from the bark.

The Moonglade was calm again, if still mist-enshrouded.

Malfurion took a deep breath. What he had done was no small miracle, not against the might he had sensed at work against him.

The Nightmare Lord had focused especially upon him. Fortunately, the evil had underestimated the archdruid in this of all places.

That settled one matter for Malfurion. He had to return to the Emerald Dream — what was left of it — before it was too late. The green dragon assigned to carry him off had said something about Ysera feeling him more important to the situation, important enough to risk herself.

Malfurion let out a growl of frustration at himself. He was hardly more important than the mistress of the Emerald Dream! Still, he owed her for her sacrifice and owed Azeroth for what his capture had permitted the Nightmare Lord to do.

He wondered why the Nightmare had not already engulfed the world. Its master had Ysera; why then wait? Was there something preventing his captor from ultimate victory?

If there is, I will not discover it standing here! he angrily reminded himself. Any answers lie elsewhere…

Without further hesitation, the archdruid transformed into a storm crow. Taking to the air, Malfurion soared from the Moonglade. Malfurion’s wings beat hard as he rose higher and higher —

But then, at a place among the clouds, he suddenly hovered.

Sharp eyes drank in a sight below that made the storm crow cry out. Perhaps he had been wrong, after all. Perhaps his hope that there was still some chance to salvage victory had merely been one last nightmare thrust upon him by a mocking foe.

The mist did not merely cover the Moonglade. It covered the land beyond it and beyond that.

In fact…it covered all of Azeroth that Malfurion could see.

“Malfurion!” Tyrande shouted. She looked to Broll. “What happened to him?”

“He must’ve cast himself back into his body! He should be all—”

The green dragon carrying them suddenly had to bank, for, without warning, the mists of the Nightmare erupted around them.